don't
want to know things, we want to feel them--and are ashamed of our
need. Mythology, therefore, we English must make for ourselves as we
can; and if we are wise we shall keep it to ourselves. It is a pity,
because since we alone of created things are not self-sufficient,
anything that seems to break down the walls of being behind which we
agonise would be a comfort to us; but there's a worse thing than being
in prison, and that is quarrelling with our own nature.

I shall have explained myself very badly if my reader leaves me with
the impression that I have been writing down marvels. The fact that a
thing occurs in nature takes it out of the portentous. There's nothing
either good or bad but thinking makes it so. With that I end.

* * * * *

CONTENTS

PREFACE

THE WINDOWS

A BOY IN THE WOOD

HARKNESS'S FANCY

THE GODS IN THE SCHOOLHOUSE

THE SOUL AT THE WINDOW

QUIDNUNC

THE SECRET COMMONWEALTH

BECKWITH'S CASE

THE FAIRY WIFE

OREADS

A SUMMARY CHAPTER

* * * * *

LORE OF PROSERPINE

THE WINDOWS

You will remember that Socrates considers every soul of us to be at
least three persons. He says, in a fine figure, that we are two horses
and a charioteer. "The right-hand horse is upright and cleanly made;
he has a lofty neck and an aquiline nose; his colour is white and his
eyes dark; he is a lover of honour and modesty and temperance, and the
follower of true glory; he needs no touch of the whip, but is guided
by word and admonition only. The other is a crooked lumbering animal,
put together anyhow; he has a short thick neck; he is flat-faced and
of a dark colour, with grey eyes of blood-red complexion; the mate of
insolence and pride, shag-eared and deaf, hardly yielding to whip and
spur." I need not go on to examine with the philosopher the acts of
this pair under the whip and spur of love, because I am not going to
talk about love. For my present purpose I shall suggest another
dichotomy. I will liken the soul itself of man to a house, divided
according to the modern fashion into three flats or apartments. Of
these the second floor is occupied by the landlord, who wishes to be
quiet, and is not, it seems, afraid of fire; the ground-floor by a
business man who would like to marry, but doubts if he can afford it,
goes to the city every day, looks in at his club of an afternoon,
dines out a good deal, and spend